Silence Between Stations (Part 2)

 

Part 2

The last time Anna saw her father, he was framed in a car window, waving in that distracted way people do when they're already halfway gone.

Twenty-five years of marriage, two children, and a transcontinental marriage had unravelled in a text message that blinked across continents. “I’ve met someone. I’m not coming back.” No maintenance. No phone calls. Just radio static and foreign postage.

Anna and her brother Luka had grown up in the echo of that silence.

Now, in her thirties, Anna was a family lawyer, known for her scalpel-sharp precision in court—and the fire in her voice when defending abandoned parents. Luka had walked a different line: a painter whose chaotic canvases spoke of fractured homes, of limbs stretching across oceans.

Then came the email. A forwarded invitation. Their father—John—was being honoured at a corporate gala in Cape Town for “decades of international development and leadership.”

Luka sent no message. Just a plane ticket confirmation and a link to a decent hotel. Anna bought a dress the same day. Not because she wanted to look good for him. But because she wanted him to see her—and regret everything he missed

They found him surrounded by glass and applause.

John looked older, yes, but not beaten. His suit was pressed, his hair greyer, but his confidence walked ahead of him into every room. When he saw them—standing side by side at the back of the banquet hall—his champagne paused mid-air.

“Anna... Luka.” He said it like a question. Like they were ghosts breaking through the crowd.

“We need to talk,” Anna said, voice low, surgical. “Outside.”

They stood under a jacaranda tree in the parking lot, petals falling like secrets.

“You look… strong,” he said to Luka.

“I had to be,” Luka replied, his voice thick with restraint. “Mom worked three jobs. I raised Anna when she got migraines from crying. I learned to cook because someone had to feed us.”

“I tried to send money—”

“You didn’t try. You didn’t show up.” Anna’s voice cracked like dry ice. “You built a new life. And left us living in the ruins of your old one.”

John sighed, looking at the ground. “It wasn’t meant to be forever. I was just trying to make it work. You wouldn’t understand—”

“Don’t,” Luka said. “Don’t tell us what we wouldn’t understand.”

There was silence. Heavy. Almost kind.

Anna stepped forward. “We’re not here for an apology. This isn’t about guilt. We came because… we needed to face the man who left. To tell you we built something out of the wreckage. Despite you. Not because of you.”

John nodded slowly. “I see.”

“Good,” Luka said. “Now go enjoy your gala.”

They turned and walked away, leaving John standing under purple blooms that had begun to fall more quickly.

Back at the hotel, Anna poured wine into two paper cups.

Luka raised his. “To the survivors.”

She smirked. “To the abandoned who became architects.”

They clinked cups, not out of celebration—but closure.

For the first time in decades, the silence didn’t feel hollow. It felt like freedom.